Those changes include energy efficiency upgrades, a full-service kitchen to attract more organizations with on-site catering and building to meet NCAA specifications for the coveted collegiate sports tournaments, the spokesman, Morris Peters, said in an email.

Unforeseen hurdles have included the discovery and removal of six underground fuel storage tanks, removing an 11-foot concrete foundation and additional excavation and foundation work to cope with the site's 30-degree slope along Howard Street, Peters said.

The authority's chairman, Gavin Donohue, also disputed the characterization that the transfer represents new money. Donohue said the money amounts to the state making the authority whole for roughly $12 million it spent to acquire land and prepare to build a larger convention center off Hudson Avenue that was never built.

"We obviously have seen incredible progress on the site," Donohue said. "The reimbursement is appropriate and is simply making whole the existing account that was started in 2006 based on a $75 million original appropriation."

One of the key selling points for the downsized Eagle Street plan, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was that it would not require an infusion of new state money. In December 2013, Cuomo announced his approval in a press release that said "the total cost of the project will be $66.5 million with no additional state subsidizing required."

The vast majority of the construction costs were to come from the $63 million remaining from $75 million in seed money set aside by Gov. George Pataki in 2006.

At the time, the convention center was a much larger project envisioned to include a hotel and standalone parking garage and, eventually, a roughly $220 million price tag.

Cuomo had little enthusiasm for that vision, which would have required an estimated $7 million to $9 million annual state subsidy to pay the construction debt. His administration pushed the authority to come up with a "scaled back, right-sized alternative" that could be built with the remaining $63 million.

That challenge resulted in the 82,000-square-foot convention hall that is rising off Eagle Street and is set to open in March of next year.

The state hopes to recoup at least some of the $12 million the authority invested in the first site on Hudson Avenue by marketing the land to private developers.

But a solicitation of proposals to transform the roughly 6.5 acres of parking lots and streets into mixed-use housing and retail yielded only two responses — and a viable plan that the state is willing to support has yet to emerge.

Donohue said part of the $12 million will be used to pay for the upgrades to the walkway that will connect the convention hall to the Times Union Center and Empire State Plaza. That connection allows convention center management to market a total of 159,000 square feet at all three locations in the "capital complex."

The authority awarded a $3.5 million contract to Albany's Sano-Rubin Construction Services for that work Tuesday. Sano-Rubin, which already has a $12 million contract for general trades work on the site, was the sole bidder for the work.

Albany County, which owns the walkway, has budgeted $400,000 to renovate the section of the 1,500-foot walkway adjacent to the Times Union Center. That work is part of a larger $16.1 million renovation to the 26-year-old arena set to begin soon.